Rather Die Trying
by nyanja14
Summary: On a day before spring, Meguro Gau was ready to die. These are the days after. (A complete story in five parts, pre-series, rated T for some violence.)
1. there was a time before you

Summary: On a day before spring, Meguro Gau was ready to die. These are the days after. (A complete story in five parts, pre-series, rated T for violence.)

Disclaimer: _Nabari no Ou _belongs to Yuhki Kamatani. I hope I did her lovely characters justice. Credit for this story's title and the first and last chapter titles are owed to David Levithan since they are humbly borrowed from his book _The Realm of Possibility_.

Notes: For the longest time, I wanted to write a fanfic about Raikou and Gau and their relationship before the events of the series. I never thought I would do it, but in November of 2012 the idea just wouldn't sit still and I decided to give it a shot. This story follows the canon as closely as it can, but obviously there will be some voyages into fanon and personal interpretation of the characters.

Dedication: I'd like to give a big shout-out to all my fellow naberries on tumblr who encouraged me while writing this and helped me in dozen of ways, big and small. This story would've never been finished if it weren't for all of y'all.

* * *

**Rather Die Trying**  
PART 1: _t__here was a time before you_

Gau woke up the next day in an empty apartment. He sat up on the couch, blinking in the bright light streaming through the window behind him and trying to remember where he was. He started to call out "Hello?" but once he opened his mouth he felt a sharp twinge in his bottom lip. He pressed his fingers to it and they came away blotted with blood.

He remembered.

Gau got off the couch and carefully folded the blanket that had been covering him before setting it to the side. His shoes were sitting neatly underneath the Western coffee table in front of him and he recalled tugging them off the night before while Shimizu-san dug out the blanket.

_Where is Shimizu-san?_

"Hello?" Gau said, muffled slightly by the hand pressed to his sore mouth. No one answered.

Gau didn't want to snoop around, but he also wanted to wash up. So he located the bathroom and scrubbed his face as thoroughly as possible, wincing as the water in the sink tinged pink. Once satisfied, he looked up into the mirror. His lips were swollen and somewhat scabbed over, though the scab had split when Gau first tried to talk. His cheek was badly bruised and his nose was really tender, though Gau didn't think it was broken. When he tugged his collar down, he exposed a ring of dark marks circling his neck. It hurt when he swallowed.

He was okay. He was lucky to be alive.

Nishimura had been unarmed, but even with the knife Gau had brought he had been dominated. Gau had only managed to leave a deep gash in Nishimura's left hand before the man wrested the weapon away from him. Even with the element of surprise on his side, Gau had been severely outmatched. Nishimura fell upon him, fists clenched and swinging and landing on Gau's face while Gau tried uselessly to kick Nishimura off of him and crying out. After that yell, Nishimura's hands went to his throat.

That yell must have been what brought Shimizu-san to the alley.

Gau wiped up the water that had spilled around the sink before exiting the bathroom and finally getting a good look at the apartment he'd woken up in. It was at least twice the size of the small place he'd rented after his mother's death, maybe even three times. It was too big for any regular working class young man, but Gau had the feeling that whatever Shimizu-san did for a living couldn't be deemed regular. Regular people didn't walk around the city with authentic katana at their side and regular people certainly didn't cut down men like Nishimura with one blow.

_Nishimura is dead._

Gau stilled, the fact coursing through his body like a cold jolt of lightening. Nishimura was dead. Gau had been planning the man's death for three years, waiting and seething with a quiet fury that nearly boiled over all the same. Would a knife be enough? Should Gau attack him in the street or follow him home one night? Could Gau even do it? He certainly had enough anger to make the strike against the man that killed his mother, but he didn't have the strength. Gau would make his move and doubtlessly die in the attempt. It was the least he could do to rid the world of scum like Nishimura and if he managed somehow to take Nishimura down with him, all the better.

But Nishimura was dead and Gau was alive.

Gau shook his head and moved into the kitchen to see if he could find a glass to drink with. A note on the counter stopped him.

_ "Gone to work. Back by noon."_

Gau studied the short note. Shimizu-san's fine calligraphy was at odds with his eclectic way of dress. But then, what did Gau know of him? He'd barely said a word the night before-besides his own name and that was only after Gau had asked three times. He didn't seem to hear the first two attempts and on the third he finally snapped and spat out "Shimizu Raikou." Gau noticed that Shimizu-san's hands were clenched and trembling slightly, so he decided to stay quiet after that.

By the time they reached the apartment Shimizu-san seemed to have calmed down a bit, but the irritability was replaced by some weariness. It wasn't very late yet, but Gau was worn out by the day. So when Shimizu-san made a gesture towards the couch, Gau sank down into it and prepared to sleep without further thought.

_ "Gone to work. Back by noon."_

The note seemed to imply that Shimizu-san expected Gau to remain at the apartment until he returned. Gau's first thought was to slip away while he could; Shimizu-san had killed a man yesterday in a heartbeat. But on second thought, Gau had been hoping to kill that same man himself for three years, so who was he to judge? Besides, if Shimizu-san had any sinister plans for Gau, he'd had plenty of time to do them while Gau slept.

Gau pushed up his sleeve to look at his watch. It was a quarter till noon already. Usually Gau would be peeved with himself for sleeping in so late, but it wasn't like he could go to school today anyway. He might not be going to school ever again for all he knew.

For lack of anything better to do, Gau went to the couch, sat down, and waited. He was nervous, though he couldn't pin down why. He was supposed to be here-he thought so, anyway. If Shimizu-san wanted him to stay, he'd stay. He owned him that much.

Gau didn't have to wait long. Within ten minutes, he heard light footsteps coming up the stairs and then a key turning in the lock. Shimizu-san entered his apartment, face downcast, and closed the door behind before finally looking up and spotting Gau perched on his couch.

"Sorry," was the first thing he said. "I'd already missed two days at my surface job for that last assignment, so I had to go in today." He pressed the palm of one hand to his face. "I didn't mean to leave you here alone, but-" He spread his fingers to look between them. "I'm sorry, did I ever even ask you what your name is?"

"Meguro Gau."

"Meguro Gau. Sorry. I was... out of it yesterday."

"It's okay," Gau hastened to interject. This apologetic Shimizu-san barely resembled the threatening, katana-wielding man from yesterday. "Um, I just wanted to thank you because that guy-" Gau broke off, twisting the hem of his sweater. "That person killed my mother a few years ago. And he... he killed her. I didn't want someone like that walking around. But I couldn't..." He forced himself to stop sputtered before his whole life story spilled out. "So, thank you, Shimizu-san." Gau stood up and bowed low.

Shimizu-san grimaced. "Please don't call me that. Just Raikou, please."

"Thank you, Raikou-san," Gau amended, still bent at the waist. "I don't think I could ever make it up to you, but I would like to try."

Raikou-san was silent for a long time. Gau's back began to ache, so he straightened up again. The man was staring at him, one hand over his mouth, so Gau lowered his gaze to the floor-partly out of respect and partly out of an inability to meet that stare head on. Finally, Raikou-san spoke through his hand. "There is something you could do for me."

"Yes?"

"I need you to come with me somewhere. Wait-that sounds kind of ominous. What I mean is, I might be in a lot of trouble and it will be easier to explain if you were there."

His explanation really didn't make it sound any less shady, but Gau didn't hesitate. "I can do that."

"Now?"

"Yes."

"Good. All right." Raikou-san crossed the room to a wall phone, lifting it off of its hook. "I need to call to see if… my boss is in. You should probably change." He gestured to one of the sliding doors. "You can wear something of mine. It'll probably be too long, but at least it will be clean."

Gau glanced down at his sweater, noting the stains where his bloody nose had dripped and the blood from Nishimura's cut hand had smeared. He started to say something, (what, he didn't know) but Raikou-san was already murmuring something into the phone, so instead he pulled back the door.

And stopped. Instead of the storage space he was expecting, the door opened into a whole other room, Raikou-san's bedroom, apparently. How big was this apartment? Did Raikou-san live in this huge place alone? That was the impression he'd gotten last night, but Gau found it difficult to believe that a single person could afford such a large place.

Unless Raikou-san was part of the yakuza or something. Gau almost laughed at the thought, but as he stepped into the room he paused. Raikou-san killed a man yesterday. Sure, Nishimura was scum, but Raikou-san had no way of knowing that for sure when he brought his blade down on him.

"There's shirts and stuff in that drawer."

Gau jumped, backing away from Raikou-san who had crept behind him without a sound.

"There," he repeated, pointing. Gau went to the drawer and opened it, revealing a veritable rainbow of colors. Gau dug around until he found the least flamboyant sweater he could, a navy one with a low-cut neck line, then glanced at where Raikou-san had been. He was gone, so Gau tugged his dirty sweater off and exchanged it for the fresh one. His shirt underneath and slacks were still clean enough, so he left them alone and returned to the living room where Raikou-san was waiting.

"Get your shoes on," he said and Gau obeyed. Soon they were out the door and headed for the subway station where Raikou-san bought their tickets and Gau remembered his wallet and school books and everything else he'd left behind at his own tiny apartment, assuming he would never be coming back. Could he even go back? Someone had to find Nishimura's body eventually and it wouldn't take a genius to connect Gau's disappearance from school with the death of his mother's murderer. It was no secret how furious Gau had been at the light sentencing Nishimura received and the fact that he'd died so soon after being released only made the death more suspicious. Gau had never even thought about how to cover up the murder because he never entertained the thought that he might survive the encounter. There was no way he could go back there.

_What am I going to do?_

Gau was so lost in his thoughts that he barely enough noticed when Raikou-san tugged him off of the train and marched him through the streets with one hand on his arm. They eventually approached a traditional-style inn and Gau came back to reality as he took note of the strange mixture completely of average looking people and incredibly strange people walking around. Once this thought entered his mind, he realized that he and Raikou-san could probably be described as such a pair. There was snow on the ground and Raikou-san was wearing open-toed sandals. Who in the world dressed like that?

_ And why am I even thinking about this?_ Gau scolded himself. This could be a den full of yakuza he was about to enter.

But when they entered the inn, there were greeted by a perky young woman sitting behind a desk. She jumped up when she spotted Raikou-san.

"Ah, good afternoon, Raikou-san," she chirped, bowing her head. "Did you have an appointment with the chief?"

"No, but I called ahead to Ichiki-san and she said to come here and he'd see me immediately."

"Of course." The woman stepped out from the desk, one arm extended outward. "Allow me to escort you to him." She paused and looked at Gau. "Uh…"

Raikou-san's hand pressed down on Gau's shoulder. "I told Ichiki-san he was coming too."

The secretary or whoever she was smiled sedately at Gau. "All right, then. If you both would follow me."

She led them down two halls, Gau glancing around curiously all the while. The place certainly didn't look like a yakuza den. And surely yakuza didn't hire young ladies to be secretaries. Gau allowed himself to relax a bit and once the tension left his shoulders Raikou-san's hand dropped off. Gau peeked up at the pleasant expression he'd met the secretary with was replaced by a taut, tired look. Worried, maybe? _"I might be in a lot of trouble," _he'd said, but what did that even mean?

The woman dropped them off at some sort of antechamber and left with one final bow. There was a door on the other side of the room and Gau could hear low murmuring coming from beyond it. "You better stay here for now," Raikou-san muttered before vanishing into the room. Gau blinked. Stay here and do what?

Gau sighed and sat down by the low table in the center of the room, folding his legs and propping his chin up on palm. He'd only been awake for a couple of hours and yet it felt like an entire day had already gone by. Left alone, his thoughts began to wander again. What was he going to do about school? And his part time job? He hadn't actually planned ahead much further than confronting Nishimura. He couldn't just go back like nothing had happened. And what about his apartment? Gau had paid the landlady this month's rent a week early and that had eaten up his meager savings…

At least fifteen minutes had gone by when the door slid open and a women dressed in a formal kimono stepped out, closing the door delicately behind her. There was something familiar about her measured movements and when she turned to face Gau, revealing her closed eyes, he made the connection. Blind, just like his mother.

"I apologize," she addressed him in a soft murmur. "We've been neglecting you out here, haven't we?"

"No, I'm fine," Gau said.

"This is a somewhat... urgent matter, so it is best to deal with it as immediately as possible. But that's no reason to leave you sitting out here." She gestured to the table Gau was sitting at. "Would you like to have some tea with me?"

"Yes, thank you."

She smiled a small, tight smile at him. "I'll just be a moment then."

She exited the room through the door Gau came in from earlier and returned a few minutes later with a tray bearing a tea pot and two cups. She lifted up the pot and began to pour. Gau's impulse was to offer to assist her, but he knew his mother never like such offers very much and this woman was obviously perfectly capable. So he sat still and thanked her when she passed a cup to him.

"You are Meguro-kun?"

"Yes."

"My name is Ichiki. I work for Hattori-san."

"Nice to meet you."

"It is unusual circumstances, but yes, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance." Ichiki-san sipped from her cup, slim fingers curling around it. "It is not like Raikou-kun to step so far out of line."

Gau drank deeply, letting the hot tea scorch through his throat. The heat soothed his sore neck. He swallowed, then lowered his cup to the table and gripped it between his palms. "Um..." He bit his lip, but then decided that Ichiki-san seemed like the safest person to ask who might actually have answers. "I'm sorry, but I don't really understand what is going on."

"Of course not. You are not meant to know." Ichiki-san produced a handkerchief from the folds of her kimono and dabbed at her lips. "I'm afraid that I am not permitted to inform you of anything until Hattori-san has reached a decision." She touched the side of the tea pot. "Would you like some more?"

"Yes, please." He slid his cup over to her and she took it before pouring and passing it back to them.

Ichiki-san raised her own cup to her lips again. "What you should know is that Raikou-kun took a big risk for you."

"...I understand that much."

She smiled that same stiff smile and sipped at her tea again. She didn't speak to him again. Instead they simply sat across from each other, Gau straining to hear any of the conversation from the other side of the door. It was a useless effort, so he gave up and spent the time trying to collect his thoughts.

Finally, the door slid open again. Raikou-san and an older man that could only be Hattori-san emerged, Hattori-san's hand resting on Raikou-san's shoulder.

Hattori-san was saying something to Ichiki-san, but Gau was struck by the expression on Raikou-san's face. Relief was the dominant expression, but mixed into it was strands of awe and something else he couldn't identify. It was so different from the drawn, closed off face he'd been presented with yesterday and the exhausted look from earlier that day. It was so different that Gau found himself just... staring.

"And you must be Meguro-kun."

Gau shot to his feet and bowed low. "Yes, sir." He felt his cheeks burning, though hopefully the man hadn't noticed his gaping.

The man chuckled. "There's no need for all that. Please, let me get a good look at you."

Gau straightened up cautiously. Hattori-san regarded him closely for several moments, so many that Gau started to shift his weight anxiously from foot to foot. Finally, that stern face broke with a grin.

"You know, Meguro-kun, I considered myself to be a pretty good judge of character. You have to be, in my line of work. Lies and misdirection are so commonplace that sometimes I worry I may choke on them all." He shook his head slightly from side to side. "But you seem like a trustworthy young man and there isn't nearly enough of that breed around anymore. "

Did that mean he passed? "...Thank you, sir."

Hattori-san clapped Gau on the shoulder and Gau's knees almost buckled underneath the weight of its impact. "I'd like to able to sit down and have a proper talk with you, but unfortunately I have a conference I must be off too." He turned his head to Raikou-san. "Raikou-kun, you can tell Meguro-kun whatever you deem fit." He paused and then spoke his next statement more gravely. "I trust your judgment."

Raikou-san bowed his head. Hattori-san smiled that warm, confident smile one more time, then withdrew his hand from Gau's shoulder. "I really must be going now. Ichiki." The woman re-entered the room and only then did Gau notice that all of the tea things were gone. When had she left?

"We're running a bit behind, could you call the office to let them know I'm on my way?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, then. Raikou-kun, thank you for coming in to see me. Meguro-kun, it was good to meet you."

Hattori-san left the room, Ichiki-san close behind him. Raikou-san watched them go, then closed the door firmly and kneeled at the table.

"Sorry," he murmured. "This morning has been kind of… never mind." He brushed a lock of blond hair behind one ear. "I guess I can explain some stuff now, but I don't know if that will make it any less strange to you." He covered his mouth, glancing up at Gau over his fingers. "You might as well sit down. This might take a while." Gau sat as requested. Raikou-san tapped the table for a few moments with his free hand, then folded both of them into his lap. "I don't know how to start. Just… ask me a question or something."

"Where are we?"

Gau had thought it was a fairly simple question, but Raikou-san frowned. "…You could call this place Hattori-san's office or his headquarters or something." Raikou-san sighed. "But that doesn't really explain anything either. Okay. Forget it. I'm just going to… go. This is probably going to sound ridiculous, but whatever."

He scowled at Gau, but Gau didn't know what to say. It seemed like Raikou-san was talking more to himself than anything else. So he just waited. Eventually, Raikou-san leaned back, propped himself up with his palms, and inclined his head to the ceiling. He started talking.

"Hattori-san is the chief of a ninja village, the Iga. The village itself exists online, but this place serves as a sort of meeting grounds. I work for Hattori-san. My job is to punish clan members that disturb the balance between our world and the surface world, the normal world." Raikou stopped and looked back at Gau again. "Does that make sense?"

Gau blinked, struggling to absorb all the information that Raikou-san had poured out. "…So you're a ninja?" It wasn't that he doubted him—why in the world would he lie about that?-but Raikou-san didn't seem very ninja-like. Sure he'd taken down Nishimura as if it was nothing, but weren't ninja supposed to be more… inconspicuous?

Raikou-san was suddenly rather fascinated by the wood grain of the table."Somewhat," he muttered, tracing one of the table's whorl. "I've always been part of the hidden world, but I wasn't a member of any ninja village. I joined the Iga a few years ago."

There was something that Raikou-san wasn't saying. Gau knew from the terse explanation and feigned nonchalance, but it wasn't his place to push. He settled for a basic question. "Why?"

Raikou-san pursed his lips. "You'd probably have to hear Hattori-san talk to really understand, but... I believe in him." His voice filled with energy as he talked; Gau recognized the expression of quiet awe he'd seen on Raikou-san earlier. "You'd really have to hear it from him to get it. But Hattori-san's mission is to end the hatred and violence in the surface world through means that only ninja could. I believe in that goal. I believe in him."

_End it?_ "Can he—could he really do that?"

"He thinks he can, so I think he can. I wouldn't have joined if I didn't have faith in Hattori-san."

One person couldn't possibly do all that. But this Hattori-san wasn't just a person, was he? He was a ninja and if ninja were real, a dream like that could become real too. It had to be possible. A world without hatred. A world without violence. A world where mothers didn't get dragged off the street and-

Gau made himself take a deep breath. As his lungs filled, his neck twinged and he pressed his fingers to the bruises there.

"Could I… is there some way I could join too? I mean, I don't know anything about ninja or whatever, but-" _I feel like I've been waiting for something like this my entire life._ "Even if I can't help Hattori-san, if I could just help you-"

Raikou-san's bright face turned hard. "Don't think you owe me anything. You don't. You probably saved me just by coming here with me today."

"I don't understand."

"Iga ninja aren't supposed to cause harm to civilians. It goes against our entire code." He rose to his feet in a single fluid movement. "Furthermore, it's my job to punish those who interfere in surface wordlers' lives." He held up one arm, displaying the bracelet he wore. "But that's exactly what I did yesterday. I killed that man, a surface worlder."

Gau stood up too, hands balled into fists. "B-but he wasn't a good guy! I can promise, he wasn't!"

"Even still, he was a surface worlder and I cut him down. If someone else did that, the punishment would be death, delivered by my sword."

"Then… why did you kill him?"

Raikou-san folded his arms over his chest and cast his gaze to the ground. "It's... difficult to put into words. I wasn't thinking. I just had to save you."

"But why?"

Raikou-san didn't offer any answer. Gau also opened his mouth to seek a proper explanation, but Raikou-san's dark frown and distant eyes made him stop. Besides… what did it matter why? He was alive and it was thanks to Raikou-san. Surely nothing else was more important than that.

Gau sat back down at the table heavily. He wished Ichiki-san had left the tea out if only so he'd have something to occupy himself with."I'm not saying I'll join just because you saved me," he declared. "I want to help." He met Raikou-san's eyes, trying his best to keep his voice steady. "I know I'm not a ninja or anything. I can't fight. I can't really do anything. But if I can help, I want to."

"Why?" Raikou-san demanded, stepping forward. He had that face again—the one Gau had first seen when Raikou-san stepped into the alley and drew his sword. Gau tried to maintain eye contact, but finally he was forced to look away. His fists tightened under fingernails pressed into the palms of his hands.

"I told you about my mother. I thought that all I could do to make the world right was to try to take down the man that killed her." He summoned the nerve to meet that fierce stare again. "But if Hattori-san can change things and if I can help, I want to."

The blond man shook his head. "The hidden world is dangerous, especially for those who weren't raised in it."

"I didn't think I was going to survive beyond yesterday anyway," Gau countered.

Raikou-san reached across the table and cuffed Gau's temple lightly. "That's no reason to throw your life away. You're a normal kid. Go back to your normal life."

"…There isn't really anything to go back to," Gau admitted under his breath. "My mom... there's no one else." Raikou-san was silent and Gau didn't dare look up. The quiet stretched for at least a full three minutes before Raikou-san finally exhaled a loud rush of air.

"All right, all right," he said. "I'll talk to Ichiki-san and see what she thinks. She's always saying I could use an assistant."

Gau got down on his knees and bowed till his forehead almost touched the floor. to his feet too and bowed deeply. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me just yet. Give it a month and you'll see that this was the worst decision you've ever made in your life."

Gau didn't agree, but he kept his mouth shut. Yesterday, he thought his life was at its end. Today, he knew that it was only just beginning.

* * *

_there was a time before you_  
_but I can't remember it now_


	2. Interlude: (IN)CONSISTENCE

Interlude: (IN)CONSISTENCE

"_It is unusual, but very well. Besides, it may do you good to have someone watching you."  
"I… don't understand, chief."  
"There can be no justice without accountability."_

It turned out that the entire apartment building Raikou-san lived in was owned by the Iga Village, so Gau was set up in the apartment directly above Raikou-san's. It was much too big for him. Even after a runner was sent back to his old place to collect his things, the walls seemed too far away and the furniture too sparsely utilized. Gau didn't have much to his name and the size of the apartment only made his possessions seem more meager.

Staring at the empty stretches of his new home, Gau couldn't help but recall the cramped 1LDK he'd lived in with his mother: the business ledgers with Braille-labeled spines crammed on their shelves, the sparse furniture pressed against the walls, the six tatami mat room where futons were laid out each evening and then folded up and put away every morning. The flat above his mother's shop didn't have a lot of space so what room existed was taken up with great care. Nothing was left lying around; messes piled quickly in such tight quarters and Gau's mother had no patience for tripping over dirty laundry or school bags.

After his mother was killed and Gau was forced to find a new apartment, he spent the first few weeks unable to sleep without the sound of her breathing beside him at night. Eventually he learned to be soothed by the creaks and moans the worn-down building made once the noises of the day weren't around to stifle them. He missed his mother and he missed his old life. It had been a small life, but a full one.

However, now Gau's life seemed to be expanding day-by-day. A whole new world, the hidden world, was open to him with its own history and important figures and Gau spent a great deal of time with his nose in a book loaned out to him from the Iga library, diligently writing down notes.

He usually read in Raikou-san's apartment. Sitting alone in his new apartment with all its empty spaces was somewhat intimidating and Raikou-san didn't seem bothered by the company. He was also, surprisingly, a fountain of knowledge concerning the hidden world and so Gau would ask him questions whenever he came across something in his reading that he didn't understand.

"Why do you know all this?" Gau finally asked one evening. Raikou-san was lying across the floor sketching something. He glanced up at Gau on the couch, long hair falling back.

"What?"

"Sorry. I mean, whenever I ask about something in these books you always know what I am talking about and can answer. But I thought you said you weren't a ninja."

"I'm not." Raikou-san returned to his drawing, crossing it out and beginning to scrawl something else. "I was born into a samurai clan that existed separate from the ninja villages, but I learned all of the hidden world history."

"Oh. Alright." Gau hesitated, smoothing one of the book's old pages with the palm of his hand. "But you joined one of the villages. Was your family okay with that?"

Raikou-san didn't answer, apparently too intent on his drawing. However, Gau couldn't help but the notice the way Raikou-san's shoulders had tensed at the question. He decided it wasn't his place to ask such a thing anyway and went back to his reading until Raikou-san finally sat up half an hour later and held out the sketch to Gau.

"Do you think this would look good tattooed on my arm?"

_"Pardon?"  
"Well, you said you're a samurai. I thought samurai carried two swords. But you only have one."  
"Ah. Actually, samurai use an assortment of weapons. The daisho is just the most iconic. This sword does have a companion, but... it's not with me."_

* * *

"_I apologize that it took so long, but you are now officially registered."  
"Thank you for going through the trouble, Ichiki-san. I didn't think I'd be able to go back at all."  
"Well, perhaps the timing is auspicious; a new school year is starting."__  
_

The separation between Gau's apartment and Raikou-san's was thin and some nights Gau would wake up to the sound of Raikou-san moving around restlessly downstairs. Sometimes it was Raikou-san tossing in bed. Other times it was the sound of pacing footsteps. On more than one occasion, Gau heard a violent smash of an object being thrown or a fist crashing into a wall. These occasions always concluded with Raikou-san slinking out the door into the dead of night. When this happened, Gau would crawl over to the window and watch his retreating back until Raikou-san finally turned at the street corner and vanished from sight. Gau didn't know where Raikou-san went on these nights but he always came back with armfuls of red flowers that lay scattered across the apartment until they wilted so much that Raikou-san finally allowed Gau to throw them away.

Gau was used to such nighttime movements. His mother had had trouble sleeping the whole night through and Gau would often wake briefly to the gentle clicks of his mother working on her soroban. He'd asked her about it once and she explained that doing calculations into the early hours of the morning was the only thing that could get her back to sleep. She would apologize for waking him but he told her he didn't mind. It was inevitable in such a small living space and besides the sound of the sliding beads had become as soothing to him as the math was for her.

He hadn't realized that he missed those sleep interruptions until Raikou-san's restlessness first woke him up. It was a strange thing to miss, but the strange sense of nostalgia that swept over him when he first blinked awake in the dark was unmistakable.

_"Where do all these flowers come from?"  
"They're spider lilies."  
"But where-sorry. Never mind."_

* * *

_"I have to admit, it looks a lot better on your arm than it did on paper.__"  
"Most likely thanks to your always beautiful work, Hitomi-chan."  
"It doesn't matter how much you try to flatter me, I won't give you a discount."_

Gau consulted the map Raikou-san had drawn and took a left. He'd never been in this part of the city before, but then again up until he joined Iga and the Kairoushu Gau had rarely ventured outside his immediate neighborhood. His sense of direction was only marginally better than Raikou-san's (which was to say not very good) so he'd been wary of agreeing with Raikou-san's request until the man pulled out a pen and started scrawling a surprisingly detailed map. The paper was clutched in Gau's hand and he couldn't help but to check it every block or so. He didn't want to be late, but he especially didn't want to get lost.

He found the right place eventually and was greeted by an elderly woman. "Sorry, son," she apologized. "We don't have visitors on weekdays."

"Oh. Um, Shimizu Raikou told me to come."

She cracked a large smile. "Oh, you're a friend of Raikou-kun? He should be getting off soon, but go ahead and go on in." She lifted up the countertop door and ushered him through. "The paper he makes is so lovely; it will be a treat to watch."

Gau thanked her and stepped into the workshop. Raikou-san was bent over a large wooden vat filled with a murky grey liquid. He glanced up at the noise Gau made (Gau was supposed to be learning how to lighten his footfalls, but he wasn't very good) and said, "You made it. Let me finish this sheet and I'll be done."

"All right," Gau answered, stepping closer to satisfy his curiosity but no so close that he might get splashed. Raikou-san was rocking a frame over the vat so that the liquid sifted out. "Is this really how they make paper?" he asked. It seemed awfully time consuming.

"Not so much anymore. Most paper you see now is made from wood pulp in big factories. The paper we make goes to specialty stationary stores. And on the weekends, tourists come to watch." He paused his work to roll up his sleeves that had slipped down, revealing white bandages wrapped around his right forearm.

"What happened to your arm?!" Gau exclaimed. Raikou-san wasn't supposed to be arresting or eliminating any ninja that day. When Gau had left for school, he'd only said he'd be stopping by one of the Iga offices.

Raikou-san chuckled. "Relax, it's just a tattoo. It doesn't really even hurt." He opened the frame removed the bamboo screen from it. He laid it face down on the table behind him and pulled the mat away from what Gau assumed was the wet paper. Gau want to ask about that, but there was another question he needed to get out. The samurai had mentioned getting a tattoo a while ago, but Gau had figured he's been jesting. "You had that done today?"

"Yeah, Hitomi-chan did it. She did the one that's on my shoulder too." He touched his left shoulder, though it was covered by his sleeve.

Gau blinked. "Takeuchi Hitomi? The woman that's been teaching me ninjutsu?"

"That's her. She's a tattoo artist in the surface world… though she mostly does work for yakuza, so maybe that's not really the surface world."

Gau had been learning more and more that appearances were deceiving, but when he tried to picture the petite bubbly woman that gleefully demonstrated how to swing a kusarigama bent over the backs of hulking gangsters, he just couldn't do it.

"You know, when I first met you I thought you might be a yakuza."

"What? In what way do I resemble a yakuza? Hmm, though something like a big peacock on my back would be cool."

Gau wasn't so sure that "cool" was the word. "Where did you learn to make paper?" he asked, partly out of curiosity and partly to divert Raikou-san from getting any more tattoo aspirations.

Raikou-san grinned. "You didn't know? Paper making is one of the great traditional arts learned by samurai."

"Really?"

"Yeah. It's right up there with flower arranging and soap making. But recently the popularity of making balloon animals is pushing it into obscurity..."

He was joking. At least, Gau was pretty sure he was; Raikou-san's sense of humor was somewhat odd. The strap of his messenger bag was started to slip off of Gau's shoulder, so he set it down on the ground. "Raikou-san, what did you want me to come out here for?"

"Oh, I almost forgot." He slid the bamboo mat back into the frame, then ducked underneath the table that held the vat. He emerged with a small paper bag. "This was ready for you when I stopped by the office this morning." He handed the bag over. "I was going to give it to you when I got back, but then I remembered I was supposed to be leaving town for the Akiyama case this afternoon. I figured I should give it to you before I lost it."

Gau opened the bag. Inside was a bracelet that Gau immediately recognized as a copy of the black and white one Raikou-san usually wore. He drew it from the bag. "This is..."

"It marks you as part of the Wakachi. As of today, you are officially my partner."

Gau grasped the bracelet tightly, but didn't put it on. "I'm still training though. I can't go into the field yet and-"

"You've already been helping me."

"That was just paperwork and stuff."

"There are plenty of ways to help that don't involve weaponry or fighting." He spoke gently enough, but Gau had already learned to recognize the tone Raikou-san used when he would accept no arguments. He removed his apron and began folding it. "That is yours now."

Gau still had his doubts, but he slipped the bracelet on. It was heavier than it looked. "...Thank you, Raikou-san," he murmured.

Raikou-san didn't acknowledge his thanks. Instead, he laid a hand on Gau's back and pushed him forward. "C'mon. I have to catch a train, but I can walk you home until we reach the station."

Gau let himself be led forward.

_"It's... it's typed."  
"Gau did it for me. He's good at this sort of thing."  
"Well, no offense Shimizu-san, but anybody would be better at it than you."_


	3. Interlude: (IN)EXPERIENCE

Interlude: (IN)EXPERIENCE

_"Y__ou only just now heard about him? You're kinda late, you know. He's been with me since February."  
"Well, I usually don't make it my business to know about Kairoushu members until they get assigned to me. So, sempai, what's he like?"  
"A brat. He'll be the death of me, that's for sure."_

It had begun one lazy, unseasonably hot day in early April. Raikou-san was sprawled across the couch in Gau's apartment. He usually didn't come upstairs, but he claimed Gau's place was colder than his. Gau was working on his homework—the Iga had somehow been able to get his registered at the local school. He was doing his best not to get behind, but Raikou-san was entrusting him with more and more Wakachi work and he didn't want to let him down either. Thus, he was in desperate need of math review. Raikou-san was supposedly reading a book (about bee-keeping of all things,) but his attention was straying.

"What if," Raikou-san proposed to the quiet room. "I dyed my hair green?"

Gau looked up from his formulas to see if this was one of Raikou-san's brand of jokes. Only last week he had proclaimed that he would cook one of his leather boots for lunch and that leather boots were actually quite nutritious. Gau had been genuinely worried that he would be forced to deal with the stench and then the taste out of politeness, but Raikou-san finally cracked a wide smile as he dropped a boot into the biggest pot he had and Gau realized he'd been played.

However Raikou-san's expression was pensive, not the smooth, straight face Gau had learned meant mischief. So Gau asked, "Why green?"

"It's something different. I think I could use a change."

Gau noticed that one of his solutions was incorrect and scrubbed at it with his eraser. "Sure then. Your hair is already bleached, so why not?"

Raikou-san flung the paperback across the room, smacking Gau right in the face and making him yelp. "My hair is not bleached."

"What?" Between Raikou-san's odd sense of fashion and the fact that he was currently making a belt with fortune charms dangling from it, it hadn't been any stretch of the imagination that his hair was bleached.

"This is one hundred percent natural," Raikou-san said, holding a long strand of hair out from his head. He was growing it out and it was already well past his shoulders.

Gau rubbed his smarting nose and picked _Bee-Keeping for Busy Bees_ off the floor. He wanted to ask if one of his parents was a foreigner or something, but Gau had noticed that Raikou-san always changed the subject when his family was mentioned. So instead Gau said "Sorry, Raikou-san. I didn't know."

"You better be. Now give me that; it was just getting interesting." He took the book and flipped through the pages. "Did you know that bees dance?"

He didn't mention dying his hair again for the rest of the day, nor the next.

Gau had put the incident entirely out of mind until two weeks later when he went downstairs to see if Raikou-san needed anything from the grocery store. He almost knocked out of habit, but Raikou-san had told him to stop doing that, so instead he just let himself in. To his surprise, the flowers that had been all over the living room yesterday were gone today. The television was on, but Raikou-san wasn't in the living room.

"Raikou-san?" he called. Gau knew he hadn't left—he would've heard the door slam for sure.

The bathroom door slid open and the samurai stepped out. "Raikou-san, did you want—"

The light green hair covering Raikou-san head made him trail off and gawk for a bit and the bad dye job made him gawk even longer, but he somehow found his train of thought again. "Did you want anything from the grocery store?"

Raikou-san gripped the dangling ends of the towel hanging off his neck. "What do you need?"

"Uh… I'm just getting more rice and I need some konnyaku for dinner tonight."

"What if you skipped the store and came out to eat with me instead?"

"Huh?"

"I feel like barbeque. I spotted this new Korean place a couple blocks away. Let's eat there."

"O-okay." Gau held up the bags he usually brought along for shopping. "Let me go put these away." He turned to leave, but Raikou-san stopped him with a hand around his wrist.

"What do you think?" He said the words with a teasing, tilted smile on his lips, but there wasn't else in his eyes that didn't quite match.

Gau blinked, wondering what in the world he was expected to say. "…It looks good," he finally settled upon.

Raikou-san stared at Gau intently for a terse ten seconds before finally closing his eyes and releasing Gau's wrist.

"Hurry," was all he said before disappearing into the bathroom again.

Gau closed the front door behind him and bounded up the stairs, wondering what had just happened. He didn't know what Raikou-san had been searching for in his face or why he had dyed his hair. But Gau did know he hadn't lied—Raikou-san did look good, even with green dye staining his hairline. Gau thought Raikou-san would always look good, no matter what he did.

"_It's been a while since I ate out too."  
"Why?"  
"Because you started cooking, why else?"_

* * *

"_That was… better, I suppose."  
"I know I'm not any good, you can tell me."  
"All right, you're not. But it's okay. There's probably enough ninja in this world already."_

There was no real reason to be nervous. True, Gau had only learned and practiced the most basic of ninjutsu, but Raikou-san had assured him that he wouldn't need to defend himself. The ninja they were pursuing was low-ranked; he would not be able to get past Raikou-san sword. Still, as Raikou-san called out to the rebel and emerged from the shadow into view, Gau clenched the kunai he held in a white-knuckled fist.

He didn't have to come along. Raikou-san had made it clear that he already appreciated the assistance Gau was giving him with compiling the files and typing up the reports. (Ichiki-san had also expressed her thanks. Apparently Raikou-san was terrible with all technology, even the most basic of word processing, and Ichiki-san's secretary had had to re-do all of the reports Raikou-san sent in.)

But Gau wanted to come. He was tired of waiting alone at the apartment and he was tired of being scared all the time. Whenever he walked around town, he found himself glancing at passersby, seeking Nishimura's features on everyone despite being only feet away when Nishimura's spilt blood melted the snow in the alleyway. Gau knew he'd never be as quick or skilled as Raikou-san, but at the very least he wanted to be brave, to have nerves of steel. What better way to become strong than to watch the strongest person he knew?

But there was another reason for coming along with Raikou-san on these missions.

"We are Wakachi. We deal with rebels within the Grey Wolves."

"Eh?" The man cocked his head. Just as their preliminary reports had claimed, he wore sunglasses even at night. "I heard there was a new Wakachi, but I didn't know it was a pair of kids."

Raikou ignored him and continued on with the statement he was required to issue to all of the accused. "Kaoru Watanabe, low-rank ninja from the Grey Wolves… while a shinobi in the hidden world, you have used ninja tools and techniques to commit acts of assault, battery, and rape in the surface world." Watanabe shifted his weight and Raikou-san's hand went down to his katana's hilt. "This is a serious crime that destroys the balance between the hidden and a surface world… not to mention is reprehensible in and of itself. Therefore—"

Watanabe threw something to the ground and a great cloud something that stung burst out. Gau ducked his head and covered his eyes with his arm. He coughed. Whatever it was in the air tasted like pepper. Gau heard a grunt and then a loud thud, but he didn't dare look.

"—We must punish you severely," Raikou-san concluded. Watanabe started to shout, but Raikou-san didn't let him finish. Gau cringed as he heard a noise that could only be metal slicing through flesh.

Raikou-san flicked his blade and the blood splattered from it and hit the concrete like rain drops. "Don't open your eyes yet. It'll still be in the air for a while."

Gau lowered his arm cautiously but kept his eyes squeezed tight as instructed. "It's done?"

"Yeah." His voice was closer this time and Gau realized that Raikou-san had moved beside him at some point. "Well, we have to deal with the body, but I don't want to handle that until I can actually see. I don't think anyone will be coming by before then, so we can wait."

"All right."

Raikou-san touched the small of Gau's back. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."_ Are you?_ But that was a question Gau couldn't voice.

There was another reason for coming along.

Gau couldn't help but notice that Raikou-san's late night disappearances always seemed to occur at the same time as the conclusion of a mission. He'd come back with a dozen or more flowers and a distant, closed-off expression that took a couple days to subside completely. Gau was no psychologist, but he could recognize a pattern when he saw one. He wanted to ask what it was that kept Raikou-san awake at nights, but there never seemed to be a good time. Besides, Raikou-san either deflected or ignored even the most innocent of personal questions.

Maybe it wasn't Gau's place to ask. But who else was there? While Raikou-san acted friendly with all of the other ninja he'd introduced Gau too, he didn't actually seem to be friends with any of them. There was someone that Raikou-san referred to as "sempai" and talked with on the phone sometimes, but that was it.

There was no one else.

Gau was too nervous to ask Raikou-san what is was about the end of missions that disturbed him so much. But he could be there with Raikou-san. It was the least he could do for the man who saved his life.

And maybe that was enough.

"_Raikou-san, why did Watanabe say that you were a new Wakachi member too?"  
"I was part of a field team until about a year ago."  
"Oh. Then, what happened to the old Wakachi?"_

* * *

_"A girl from another class left it."  
"Who?"  
"Sorry, Meguro-kun. She swore me into secrecy!"_

Gau's cell started ringing just moments after he switched it from silent. He answered it and pressed the phone against his ear with one shoulder, his hands busy trying to dislodge the bag stuffed in his locker. "Hello?"

"The chief wants to see us before he leaves for that conference."

"About the-" Gau broke off with a grunt as the red monstrosity finally slipped out. Gau sighed and dropped it besides his school bag before reaching into the locker for his street shoes. "-Miyazaki case?"

"Yeah. What are you doing?"

"Just putting my shoes on." It was partially true anyway. "When is Hattori-san leaving?"

"In about two hours. Can you meet me at the station?"

_Damn._ "Uh, no problem. I can be there in about ten minutes." Gau said his goodbyes then hung up, jamming his phone into his pocket and his feet into his shoes. He considered trying to conceal the offending red bag into his backpack, but he knew it wouldn't fit. Gau had hoped he'd be able to sneak the bag into his apartment without Raikou-san noticing, but apparently today was not his lucky day. With a long suffering sigh, Gau shouldered his belongings and hurried to the train station.

Raikou-san was waiting there and in the hustle and bustle of rushing to catch the subway, the samurai didn't seem the notice the extra luggage Gau carried with him. It wasn't until they were in the car subway (pressed uncomfortably close to each other and a pack of strangers) that Raikou-san took note of the red bag.

"What's that?" he asked and as hard as Gau struggled to remain nonchalant, a blush rose to his cheeks.

"Nothing," he muttered.

Raikou-san somehow managed to lean into Gau even further and Gau had to brace himself to avoid stumbling into the old lady next to him. "Doesn't look like nothing to me," Raikou-san hummed. When Gau didn't reply, he continued. "Especially not with that look on your face." Gau's cheeks were burning now. "But it's rather late to be giving out chocolate. Valentine's was weeks ago." Gau kept his silence, but Raikou-san plowed onward, swinging one arm up to wrap around Gau's shoulders. "That's a pretty big bag you got there. Is it full of all the love letters you've gotten so far? Just how many girls have you got besotted?"

Seeing that Raikou-san was obviously not going to give up, Gau muttered, "One."

"One? One girl gave you that big thing? What exactly is in there?"

"I haven't looked yet," Gau admitted.

"Well, she must like you a lot to give such a big gift. Who is she?"

"I don't know—it was on my already desk when I came into homeroom."

"Ah, a secret admirer," Raikou-san crooned and the blush spread to the back of Gau's neck.

"Please stop," Gau begged, one hand pressed to his face. Raikou-san chuckled and squeezed Gau against his side before relinquishing him.

"Why are you so embarrassed? It's just a gift."

"Maybe you're used to it, but I'm not." Gau muttered. Raikou-san was somewhat odd but he was also very tall and handsome—not to mention the mysterious air he carried himself with. Gau could easily imagine girls stuffing confession letters into his locker and bombarding him with gifts on February fourteenth. "I haven't even gotten Valentine's chocolate since elementary school," he added.

"What? How is that even possible?"

Between his flush and body heat of the masses pressed against him, Gau felt ready to burn up and die. "Please, just drop it, Raikou-san."

"Your friend is right," the elderly woman beside Gau piped up. "You seem like a fine young man and very responsible, just like my Kaoru-kun."

Raikou-san laughed and elbowed Gau's ribs. "He is very responsible. Tell me, does your Kaoru-kun do the laundry at exactly the same time every week?"

"Oh, yes! And whenever he visits, he admonishes me for not airing out the futons often enough."

Raikou-san and the lady chattered the entire ride, until finally it was their stop. Gau squeezed out of the tightly packed car and hurried outside the station, grateful for the chill that still clung to the air. He heard the samurai call out a goodbye to the woman before following Gau.

"Are you mad?" Raikou-san asked. It wasn't really that cold out, but he pulled on a pair of bright yellow gloves anyway.

Gau realized that his brow was furrowed and his mouth turned down into a frown. He did his best to clear his expression. "I'm not mad," he grumbled. "I just don't like to be teased."

Raikou-san's eyes were wide and his eyebrows high. "I wasn't teasing."

"Yes, you were."

"I wasn't," he asserted. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked Gau up and down. "You really haven't gotten Valentine's day chocolate since elementary school?"

"I don't even like chocolate much." Gau turned his head to regard the street. They were still several blocks away from headquarters and Hattori-san would have to leave soon. "We need to get going."

But Raikou-san ignored him. "Frankly, I'm surprised you didn't get more gifts. You work hard and you're cute and kind. I don't know what those girls at your school were thinking."

_Cute?_ That light-headed, over-heated feeling washed over Gau again. "C-can we please just go?" he stammered. "The chief is waiting."

Raikou-san stared him down before finally sighing and dropping his arms to his side. "All right, let's move. But I want some of whatever is in that big bag."

"If it's chocolate, you can have all of it," Gau promised, relieved that the subject was finally being dropped.

There were many reasons why this day should stick out in Gau's mind. It was the first day he received chocolate from a girl and it actually meant something. It was the first time he saw Raikou-san maintain a good mood all day. It was even the first time Hattori-san had asked to see both of them at once.

But as silly and frivolous as it was, Gau would always remember this day as the day Raikou-san called him cute.

_"These boots are really cool. I'll buy them; I'm getting tired of sandals anyway."  
"Oh! Those boots actually are really nice."  
"What do you mean 'actually?' You should get a pair too. School shoes aren't good for field work."_


	4. Interlude: (IM)PERMANENCE

Interlude: (IM)PERMANENCE

_"He's doing fine, chief."  
"Really? It's quite a transition to make. I wouldn't be surprised at all if he was struggling a bit."  
"He hasn't said anything to me."_

On December 28th, Gau did not go to school. He felt guilty about skipping (he already missed enough due to his work as wakachi) but he knew that it would be useless to go. He got up early and puttered around his apartment, shifting things around, throwing out some stuff, not really cleaning at all. He tried to begin typing up the report for the job he and Raikou-san had completed the night before, but his eye were tired and sore and staring at the computer monitor proved to be too much of a strain and he soon gave it up. So Gau made a very large cup of tea and sat on the couch, letting it cool between his hands. At some point, there was a knock on his door and he reluctantly moved to answer it. Raikou-san was on the other side.

"Oh. You're back from work." He hadn't realized how late in the day it was already.

"Yeah." There was a long pause that Gau didn't bother trying to fill. He just rubbed his temples until Raikou-san finally said, "Are you alright? Because usually…"

Usually, Gau hung out in Raikou-san's apartment to escape the blank, looming walls of his own quarters. Gau didn't know if Raikou-san understood why he avoided his own apartment, but the man was certainly smart enough to notice a pattern. "Sorry," Gau muttered. "Today—today is a bad day."

"Did something happen?"

"Not really. But..." Gau couldn't do this with Raikou-san standing there awkwardly in the doorway. He'd never told anyone and he never thought he would, but right now the words were pressed tight against his rib cage, fluttering in a panic like a flock of birds, and he needed to tell someone, he needed to. Gau opened the door wider. "Do you want tea or something?"

Raikou-san took the invitation for what it was and settled on the couch while Gau started brewing a fresh pot of tea. When he finally poured, his hands shook and he spilled some tea on the table. Raikou-san took the pot from him and finished pouring while Gau wiped up the mess.

"My mother—" His voice broke. Gau pursed his lips and stirred a generous spoonful of honey into his cup and drank some tea. He stared down at the slick spot where he spilled earlier and started again. "My mother died four years ago today."

Raikou-san didn't say anything, but Gau knew he was listening carefully. He took a deep breath. "I was watching the shop. She left to go get something… I don't remember what," he admitted. "Usually I would be the one to run errands, but I'd been sick recently and it was a bad winter that year so she wanted me to stay inside."

They'd argued about it. Gau was tired of being cooped inside and with all the snow and ice, it was harder for his mother to navigate the neighborhood. She'd dismissed his concerns. When he said he'd go with her, pointing out that it was unlikely any customers would come in such poor weather, she'd snapped at him and stormed out.

They both had such short tempers…

"Your father?"

Gau glanced up in surprise; it was the first words Raikou-san had spoken since coming in. He shrugged his shoulders and picked up the rag to rub the remaining dampness off the table. "I don't remember him. I don't think my mom knew what happened to him either. She never said."

Raikou-san didn't reply. He just waited and so Gau put the rag aside and bit his lip. "A man—Nishimura—dragged her into an alley. It was getting late, not many people were out. So no one saw or heard. Nishimura tried to…" He took a loud breath and ground out the word. "_Rape_ her. She fought him, but he slammed her into the ground and her skull—" Gau's voice cracked again and he covered his mouth with one hand. "He left her in the snow," he finished. "No one found her until hours later and by then…"

Raikou-san was pressed against his side, one arm tight around his back, and Gau realized suddenly that he'd been crying. Gau scrubbed his eyes with the palm of his hand. He hadn't cried about his mother for years, but he hadn't told anyone about what happened for years either. "Sorry," he muttered.

"For crying? Don't be an idiot." Raikou-san nudged his head down to lay against his shoulder and Gau let him; he was too tired to be embarrassed and Raikou-san was very warm. "Mothers deserve tears," he murmured, so low that Gau almost missed it. He sounded so young as he said it and it occurred to Gau suddenly that Raikou-san was only a few years older than himself.

_Where's your mother?_ he wanted to ask. _Does she know where you are, what you're doing?_

He knew he wouldn't get any answers though. So instead Gau stayed right where he was, closed his eyes, and let himself rest.

"..._Raikou-san?"  
"Hm?"  
"...Never mind."_

* * *

"_Is there something going on at home, Meguro-kun?"  
"What? No, sensei, nothing. Why do you ask?"  
"You seem to be absent an awful lot."_

The report on the Meiji Restoration was due tomorrow. Gau hadn't had a chance to work on it over the last week because of a particularly difficult case for the wakachi. But the woman's hair and fingerprints had been delivered to the office and now Gau finally had enough breathing space to sit down and crack open his textbooks in front of the computer. He'd gone up to his own room to work on it since Raikou-san had the television on, but about twenty minutes later Raikou-san knocked on his door and Gau called for him to come in. He was on a roll and he wasn't about to break his concentration to walk to the door, not even for Raikou-san.

"There's nothing interesting on," he complained, stepping around the freshly rearranged furniture. A few days ago Gau had pulled everything several centimeters away from the wall in an attempt to make the apartment seem smaller. One side of him approved of the change—his rooms didn't seems so overbearing now. But the other side hated the wasted space and all of the additional corners to stub toes on. Raikou-san hadn't seen the new layout yet, but he didn't comment on it. "What's your paper about anyway?"

"I'm supposed to be exploring three different causes for the Meiji Restoration. But my textbook keeps going on about that Perry person and the Meiji Six Society and nothing else." Gau had gone online to look for information too, but the sheer number of articles on the Restoration was intimidating. He didn't know where to start.

Raikou-san pulled a chair over to the computer desk and sat down on it. "I could tell you all about what the hidden world was doing during the Meiji Restoration, but I'm pretty sure that's not what your teacher is looking for."

Gau propped his chin up on his hand as he scrolled through yet another webpage devoted to artwork of black ships. "She'd probably think I was pulling a prank."

"It's not like you to put work off like this," Raikou-san commented.

That stung a bit at Gau's pride. He didn't want Raikou-san to think he wasn't doing his best, not at anything. "I didn't put it off, I just-"

"What?"

"Never mind." He wasn't going to whine to Raikou-san about too much work, not when Raikou-san had wakachi duties and a surface job. Besides, twice this week Raikou-san had left the apartment after a nightmare or whatever it was that was preying on his mind. He didn't need Gau giving him more things to worry about.

"Want me to read the chapter in your textbook?" Raikou-san offered. He picked it up off the desk and started paging through it. "I'll see if you might've missed anything."

"Y-you really don't have to."

"Don't worry, I'm plenty bored already." He found the chapter on the Meiji Restoration and leaned back in his chair. "Besides, you're always helping me. I never get to help you."

Gau didn't think that was true, not at all. But Raikou-san's eyes were already focused on the textbook and slightly narrowed-just are they were when he read wakachi case files. That made Gau feel... kind of happy, though he wouldn't be able to explain why if pressed. All the same, he smiled a little to himself as he clicked another link.

"_So... what was happening in the hidden world during the Meiji Restoration?"  
"Alien abductions. My great-great-great grandmother was among one of the taken. The ninja villages united against the foreign threat and-"  
"Have you found anything in the textbook yet?"_

* * *

"_We could really use the help."  
"Ah, I wish I could, but I'm too busy."  
"Are you sure? It won't be too much work, really!"_

It was a regular Thursday afternoon. Gau was exiting his school's gates and chatting with a girl from his class, Naoko-san, when she stopped mid-sentence and asked, "Who in the world is _that_?" Gau followed his line of sight and spotted a familiar head of poorly-dyed green hair. His heart lodged in his throat for a moment—what was Raikou-san doing here? He never picked Gau up from school. Raikou-san noticed Gau and raised a hand to greet him.

"You know him?"

"Yeah. He's my, uh, neighbor," he answered. "Something must have happened, I better go. See you later."

Gau started to jog over to Raikou-san. "Bye!" Naoko-san called. "I hope everything is okay!"

Gau waved back to her and then gasped, "What's going on, what happened?" once he reached Raikou-san.

"Who's that?" the samurai asked instead.

"Oh. Uh, she is my class's representative, Yoshinaga Naoko. She wants me to join the committee for the cultural festival."

"Isn't kind of early in the year for a cultural festival?"

"Well, I guess so—but never mind that, why did you come out here?"

Raikou-san cast a glance around the busy street, then tugged Gau's arm. "Come on, let's start walking." Once they got moving, he murmured low under his breath, "A reconnaissance team just returned from Banten with confirmation."

"Confirmation of what?" He was pretty sure that Banten was one of the ninja villages, but that was all he knew about it. When it came to the hidden world, Gau still had a lot to learn.

"The Shinrabanshou has appeared again."

Now that was a name Gau definitely knew. He was so startled that he almost tripped over his own feet and into the path of another student, but Raikou-san caught him by the arm and pulled him out of the way. He muttered an apology and then whispered furiously to the samurai,"The hijutsu? It's here?"

Raikou-san nodded. "Yes. Things are going to get very interesting in the hidden world."

That was an understatement. This was the moment that Iga had been waiting. "What are we going to do?"

"Nothing. It's not our job—the field team and research team will certainly be working overtime though."

"So then, what are you doing out here?"

Raikou-san punched him in the shoulder. "What, I can't pick you up from school?"

"No, just, you've never done it before."

Raikou-san made a humming noise. "Fair enough."

They continued to walk another block. Raikou-san seemed to be in an especially good mood. Gau didn't know if it was because of the news or if that was just a coincidence. He really didn't know much about the Shinrabanshou other than that it was the main reason why the ninja villages existed and that Hattori-san hoped to harness it in order to evoke change from the world. Gau supposed that last bit could be the reason for Raikou-san's happy air. He'd joined Iga and the Kairoushu because he believed in Hattori-san, after all. Gau resolved to log in the Iga database and read up on the Shinrabanshou once he had the chance.

"You never said where we were going."

"We," Raikou-san proclaimed, one finger gesturing in air, "Are going to get ice cream."

Minutes later found the pair inside a small, family-run parlor, Raikou-san sampling at least half of the available flavors before settling on a scoop of something that was bright blue, red, and yellow. It made Gau gag a little just looking at it, so he concentrated on his plain chocolate ice cream cone.

"Are you going to join?" Raikou-san asked out of the blue.

"What?"

"The cultural festival committee."

"No way, I'm already too busy. I probably never should have even joined the band."

Raikou-san bit into his waffle cone with a loud crunch. "Too bad. It sounds fun. I never really got to do any clubs or anything when I was in school. Too busy at the dojo."

Gau looked up at Raikou-san sharply. The older man almost never offered up any details about his life before joining Iga village. Gau wanted to press for more, but Raikou-san scooted back in his chair and stood up. "Ready to go?"

"Yes." Gau grabbed a couple of napkins from the table to wrap around his cone and followed Raikou-san out the door. Perhaps he could ask some other time.

"_Naoko-san?"  
"Oh, good morning, Gau-kun. Did you need something?"  
"I changed my mind."_


	5. I'm sure I lived without you

PART 2: _I'm sure I lived without you_

Gau had just placed his school bag on the coffee table in Raikou-san's apartment when the wall phone rang. Gau stared at it. The phone hardly ever rang and whenever it did Raikou-san was home. He was still at his surface job right now. And now that Gau thought of it, he told him this morning that it was a co-worker's birthday and he would be out celebrating with them until late that night. The phone rang and rang as Gau panicked and wondered what to do. It had been going for at least a moment before Gau realized that Raikou-san didn't have an answering machine and whoever was calling apparently wasn't going to give up. So he crossed the room and lifted the phone off the hook.

"...Hello?"

A gruff, angry voice piped through the other line. "It's about ti- wait, who is this?"

Wasn't that supposed to be Gau's question? "Meguro Gau. I work with Raikou-san."

"That brat he picked up? Agh, never mind." Gau bristled over the brat comment and was just about to fire back a retort-who'd this guy think he was anyway?-but before he could get anything out the man went on. "Look, just tell Raikou that Yukimi called to tell him that I ran into someone today that's looking for him."

_Looking for him?_ Like-an assassin or something? Or a friend? "Who?" he asked.

The man made an exasperated noise. "I don't know, a girl-middle school age, long blonde hair, swinging a sword. I figured she was probably a relative or something, so I thought I'd let him know."

"O-okay. I'll make sure to tell him."

"Yeah, tell him he needs to get a cell phone too. Or at least a damn answering machine!" Yukimi-san hung up and Gau replaced the phone on the hook and stared blankly ahead at the wall.

A relative? Raikou-san never talked about his family and whenever there was even the barest mention of the subject he got... testy. Gau wandered over to the couch and sat down upon it, arms braced on his legs. It sounded important, but how was Gau supposed to tell him?

He pulled his English workbook out of his school bag and tried to concentrate on the latest vocabulary list, but instead he wound up staring at the page mindlessly until his pen finally slipped from between his loose fingers. Gau picked it off the floor and shoved his things back into his bag. If homework wasn't going to happen, he could at least clean.

And so the windows were washed, the carpet was vacuumed, all the dirty laundry was done and carefully folded, and the bathroom was scrubbed until every surface gleamed. When Gau couldn't find anything else that needed the cleaning, he went up to his own apartment and started the whole process over again. When he eventually ran out of chores (neither he nor Raikou-san were very messy to begin with) Gau began to prepare the most elaborate meal he could think of for dinner.

Maybe it wasn't really a big deal. So what if Raikou-san didn't talk about his family a lot? It wasn't like Gau went around telling everyone he met his life story. It was just some girl looking for Raikou-san. She might not even be a family member. Maybe Raikou-san would even be pleased to hear the news.

Gau ate his food without tasting a single thing. While it was nice to dream that Raikou-san would react well to the news, Gau knew that wasn't going to happen. The only uncertainty was… how badly would Raikou-san take it?

_Damn it, Yukimi-san! Why did you dump this off on me?_ Gau hadn't even met the man yet and he already disliked him.

Gau washed his dishes and grabbed some homework and the mp3 player he bought last month before returning downstairs. Maybe if he filled the silence with music he'd be able to think.

In the remaining hours until Raikou-san arrived, Gau somehow managed to finish some school work. He was just digging into the latest wakachi criminal profile for review when the front door opened and Raikou-san came in.

"You're still awake? Don't you have school tomorrow?" He bent over to remove his shoes-he kept them on when walking on tatami mats but not carpet, oddly enough-and when he glanced up at Gau through his barely-still-green bangs Gau realized he still hadn't answered.

"No- I mean, yes, I have school but, uh..." Gau got off the couch, one arm twisted awkwardly behind his back. "A man named Yukimi-san called earlier today."

"Sempai?" Raikou-san finished putting his shoes away and entered the apartment proper. He went to the kitchen and poured himself a cup of water. "What did he want?"

Gau couldn't look Raikou-san in the eye, so he stared at the ground instead. He'd been in such a good mood recently and Gau was about to ruin it with one simple message. He swallowed. "Yukimi-san wanted to tell you he met a girl who said she was looking for you." Raikou-san didn't say anything, so he forged onward. "Around middle school age with blonde hair and a sword." Raikou-san still hadn't responded, so Gau risked a glance up.

The samurai's fists were clenched and his entire arms trembled. Not with fear. Gau finally looked at Raikou-san and it wasn't fear he saw in that face but anger. His eyes were dark and narrow and a million miles away. His lips were pinched and they barely even twitched when out issued a few flat words. "Get out."

"...Raikou-san?"

"Out!"

Gau flinched at the shout and didn't even bother to gather his things before bolting out of the apartment. Back in his own awful, too big living room, Gau sank to the floor and pressed his hands to the carpet. His apartment was almost an exact replica of Raikou-san's, but Gau had no idea where Raikou-san was or what he doing down there. The dead quiet worried Gau more than Raikou-san's pacing at night did.

Gau remained there, keeping a solitary vigil for a least ten minutes before any noise broke through the thin space separating the apartments. Raikou-san shouted something so inflamed that Gau couldn't even make the words out and a series of crashes followed the outburst. He winced with each one and finally just closed his eyes, hands quivering where they laid on the floor. Gau felt sick to the stomach, as if he was the one ensnared in some deep turmoil. He didn't understand what was going on with Raikou-san, didn't understand Raikou-san at all really, but whatever this old hurt in Raikou-san's heart was, this nightmare, Gau wanted it gone. He wanted—

_What is this feeling?_

There was a horrible smash so startling it made Gau leap off the floor. He stared down, but everything below was suddenly soundless. Gau's heart thudded loudly in his ears as he stood rigid. Was it over? This silence was even more awful than the first.

Gau crept out of his apartment and back down the stairs. He hesitated outside Raikou-san's door before making a small fist and knocking, something he hadn't done in weeks. He waited, but when there was no answer he turned the knob and peered around the door. "Raikou-san…?" he called, voice cracking.

Nothing. Gau stepped inside. The apartment he'd made spotless just hours ago was in shambles, but Gau hardly cared. He could fix it later; Raikou-san needed seeing to now.

The samurai wasn't in the living room, nor the kitchen, nor the bedroom, so finally Gau checked the bathroom. The light was out, but Gau could see the outline of Raikou-san slumped on the floor. He swallowed and flicked the light on. Glass was everywhere, but even more alarming was the blood. The mirror over the sink was destroyed and judging by the swollen, bleeding mess of Raikou-san's left hand Gau could guess what had happened.

"Go away," Raikou-san groaned, but there was no force behind it. Gau ignored him and crossed the small room to the cabinet where Raikou-san kept first aid supplies. The glass crunched underneath his shoes and he was glad he hadn't bothered to remove them.

"I need to treat your hand."

Raikou-san didn't reply, so Gau took that as permission. Raikou-san may be angry with him for intruding, but Gau needed to do this. He swept a spot on the floor clear with one foot and knelt down beside the man. He allowed Gau to take his injured hand, his other hand hiding his face. Raikou-san didn't say anything as Gau washed the wound and didn't so much as twitch as Gau carefully removed shards with tweezers. Eventually Gau could feel Raikou-san's eyes on him but he didn't meet the gaze, instead focusing on gently rubbing the cut areas with antiseptic and then wrapping a bandage around the hand.

Finished, Gau sat back on his heels and started packing up the first aid box again. When he snapped it closed, Raikou-san put his uninjured hand down on the lid, stopping Gau from putting it away. Gau met his eyes finally and while there was something harsh in them it was too soft to be anger.

"…Could you do something for me?" Raikou-san finally asked.

"Of course. What?"

"Is that drug store a block from here still open?"

"Huh?" Gau blinked in confusion. "Uh, I think so."

"Take my wallet and go to the store. Buy hair dye."

"What?" He was dyeing his hair again? Now? "Why? I don't understand." Gau wasn't an expert, but this could hardly be the regular response to, well, whatever it was that just happened.

"I need to change it. It's… important. The green is pretty faded anyway."

Gau suddenly remembered a sweltering day in April, Raikou-san distracted and tired and saying _"It's something different. I think I could use a change."_ A change. Was that what Raikou-san had been doing all along? The new tattoo on his arm, the green hair, the odd clothes that only got odder when Raikou-san was upset. Was he remaking himself? But why? Raikou-san was the best person Gau knew.

Well, Gau didn't understand, but that didn't mean he wouldn't help. "What color do you want?"

Raikou-san's face was buried in his hands. "Anything. You pick," he muttered. "Just go."

He examined the samurai closely and after deciding that he didn't seem like he was going to do something to injure himself again, Gau got up from the floor, found Raikou-san's wallet, and left.

It was somewhat chilly outside. But he didn't go back to grab his jacket; he had the feeling that it would be best if he hurried. When he entered the shop, the employee working the graveyard shift did not even glance up from his newspaper. Gau located the hair products section and faced down the rows upon rows of boxes. What did he know about hair dye? What did know about hair colors for that matter?

Green was out. Blonde was definitely out. That still left a plethora of possibilities. Gau frowned. People actually dyed their hair all these different colors?

A box of deep red dye caught his attention (Raikou-san certainly liked those red flowers), but as he reached out to grab it, he stilled. Blood was also red. And while blood was how Gau met Raikou-san, all he could think of right now was Raikou-san's torn hand.

Maybe not red then.

Gau sighed and stepped back again. He checked his watch. He should really return soon. He looked to the left of the red dye, spotted bright pink, and took it. Why not? It couldn't look any more ridiculous than green.

He paid for the dye and jogged back to the apartment building, huffing as he took the stairs two at a time.

Raikou-san had apparently taken the initiative to sweep up the glass that had gotten on the bathroom floor and drag a chair into the small space. "I still have all the stuff from the last time I dyed my hair," he said, crouching in front of the cabinet beneath the sink. He pulled out that same towel he'd been wearing before, a small bowl, a tangled bundle of ponytail holders, and a glittering tube of peach flavored lip balm.

"What is the lip balm for?"

"Stops skin from staining. I probably should have used more of it last time." Raikou-san stood up and looked down at his chest. "I like this shirt. Hold on. " He brushed past Gau. "Go ahead and open the dye box and start mixing it," he called over his shoulder before disappearing into his bedroom.

Mix? Apparently Gau knew even less about dyeing hair than he'd thought he did. And surprisingly he was going to be part of the process this time. He didn't know what to think about that. Gau read the box's directions carefully and then started to combine the products in the bowl.

Raikou-san returned wearing a ripped shirt that bore the legend FISH BONES. He took the lip balm from the line of supplies Gau had organized on the sink and started to apply it along his hairline. It left a sparkling trail along his forehead. Gau watched for a moment. It was his left hand he'd injured, his dominant one, so Raikou-san was going a bit slowly with the lip balm in his right. A question came to mind, a question he wasn't sure Raikou-san was going to take well, but it was kind of important and he seemed a lot calmer now.

"…Are you going to be able to work?"

That wasn't the question he really wanted to ask, but it was close enough for now.

Raikou-san stilled for a moment and glanced at Gau in the mirror. "I assume you're not talking about making paper," he said lightly.

"No."

He started applying lip balm to his ears. "I learned how to fight with both hands." And that was it. Gau bit his lip, wondering if he should push his luck and follow up with _"What were you thinking, smashing a mirror?" _or _"Are you going to be okay?"_ or even, if he was feeling really brave, _"Do you want to talk about it?"_

But Raikou-san didn't want to talk about it. That much was obvious from the defensive set of his shoulders and the too-smooth expression covering his face.

Maybe he wasn't even ready to.

So Gau kept his silence until Raikou-san finished with the lip balm. "Okay!" he chirped with forced cheer. "Have you got the dye ready? What color did you get anyway?"

Gau picked up the box, frowning at the needlessly English name and sounding it out. "Cotton candy pink? What is cotton?"

Raikou-san peered over his shoulder at the box. "Sounds tasty." He seated himself in the chair. "I'm ready whenever you are."

"I've never dyed anyone's hair before." Gau felt the need to warn him. He was way out his comfort zone. And the box said that this was permanent dye. What if he messed up? It was kind of stupid to get this nervous over hair, but Gau knew this was important to Raikou-san for some reason so he wanted to get it right.

"It's not really that hard. I mean, I didn't know what I was doing when I made it green. Just make sure to coat all the hair." He pointed at the gloves Gau had pulled out of the kit. "And be sure to wear those."

"All right," Gau sighed. He tugged the gloves on, then picked up the bowl and the strange comb that had also come out of the box.

"Wait, I remembered something else. You need to section off my hair."

"Huh?"

"Oh, and should I have bleached it first…?"

"Raikou-san!" Gau slammed the bowl down. "I'm going to go up to my apartment, turn on the computer, and check the internet."

Raikou-san followed him up the stairs and perched behind him while Gau consulted what turned out to be a lot of teenage girls' blogs. When Gau finally thought he had a better idea of what he was doing, they went back to the bathroom. Raikou-san sat again and Gau stared down at the top of his head, carefully parting the hair with a comb.

Raikou-san was very quiet. It wasn't the stiff silence that had surrounded him when Gau had cleaned up his hand earlier that night. It was something else. Thoughtful, maybe? Gau frequently found himself unable to adequately describe the moods Raikou-san fell into or even to name the feelings that filled his chest whenever Gau was around him. In all the years he'd lived (which wasn't that many, to be fair) Gau had never met someone that brought the same combination of frustration and fondness out of him.

Gau started to apply the dye. He still wasn't very confident that he could do a good job, but Raikou-san had asked him to try, so he would. _At the very least,_ Gau assured himself, _it can't be worse than that first dye job._ Raikou-san was skilled at plenty of things, but dyeing his hair did not seem to be one of them. So Gau would learn.

With the first area finished, Gau started on the next section and slowly his movements became more confident. Before long, half of his hair was pink. And then about three quarters. Gau forgot about the time going by as his hands went through the repetitive motions. He could do this. This was something he could do for Raikou-san. It wasn't much, but at least it was something.

Suddenly, Raikou-san's head dipped towards his chest. Gau stiffened, then took a step around to chair to examine his face. Completely lax with no hint of the strain that usually occupied his features, even when smiling. Raikou-san had fallen asleep.

Gau had never seen Raikou-san sleeping before, so he couldn't help but gawk for a few beats before shifting around the samurai again to finish coloring his hair. There were only a few small sections left but Gau took his time, putting off the moment he'd have to wake Raikou-san and send him off to a real bed.

Raikou-san yawned a lot during the day. That'd been one of the first of Raikou-san's many quirks that Gau had noticed when he first started working with him. It made sense once Gau realized that Raikou-san got so little rest at night and that didn't take long to figure out at all. Sometimes Raikou-san's eye lids would start to flutter at meetings or on the train, but he never allowed himself to drift off completely in public. Besides that, Gau had never even seen Raikou-san nap in his own apartment. He knew that this occasion was likely only occurring because Raikou-san was so exhausted, but he couldn't help but feel a little honored.

Eventually though, Gau had to break his slumber. He cleaned up and put away all the supplies before he finally nudged his shoulder. "Raikou-san. " His head lolled a bit, then Raikou-san blinked up at Gau blearily. "You need to get up."

"Hnn, what time is it?"

Gau looked at his wrist before remembering he'd taken his watch off before he started applying the dye. "I don't know. It's late."

Raikou-san stumbled to his feet, uninjured hand going up to touch his hair until Gau grabbed his elbow. "Ah, it has to dry still! You can sleep with it in, just make sure to put a towel on your pillow."

That was apparently too complicated of a subject for whatever unholy hour it was because the now-pink-haired samurai just stared at him. Gau made an exasperated noise and grabbed the towel Raikou-san had set aside earlier in one hand and the man's wrist in the other. He tugged Raikou-san into his bedroom and directed him to lie down once his pillow was safe from the dye. Raikou-san obeyed, only groggily asking him, "Don't you have school?"

"Later," Gau acknowledged. He pulled off Raikou-san's shoes; he must have put them back on before cleaning up the glass. It was good to know that Raikou-san still had some sense in his head. "Do you want to take something for your hand?"

"S'okay," Raikou-san muttered, rolling onto his side and tucking his injured arm against his body. Gau readjusted the blanket so that Raikou-san's feet were covered again and Raikou-san sighed a very quiet "Thanks."

Gau sat for a while to make sure Raikou-san really didn't need a drug for the pain, but before long his breath was slow and deep, his face relaxed, and Gau knew he was asleep again. Safe now from Raikou-san's awkward silence or cold shoulder, Gau was tempted to mutter, _"That was really stupid, you know, punching that mirror."_ If he had been feeling really bold, he might have even shaken Raikou-san awake and asked _"What is going on with you? Can I help?"_ But he didn't because no matter what Raikou-san's answer would have been for either question, Gau's response would be the same: Gau would do all that he could, always.

Gau watched Raikou-san's chest rise and fall and tried to feel strong. In a few minutes, Gau would leave Raikou-san's side, crawl into his own bed, and close his eyes to catch a couple precious hours of sleep. He would rise on time and leave for school as though nothing had happened, as though the world was still the same as it had been before Gau had ever answered the phone, before Gau had found Raikou-san on the floor, before Gau had stared down at the top of his tired, troubled head and touched his hair. In a few minutes, Gau would leave.

In a few minutes.

_I'm sure I lived without you_  
_but I don't remember how_

* * *

This story's titles were borrowed from David Levithan's _The Realm of Possibility_, particularly from the section "Love songs for Elizabeth." The following is an excerpt from "track one: something to you."

there was a time before you  
but I can't remember it now  
a time before your beauty and I  
were formally introduced  
I'm sure I lived without you  
but I don't remember how  
can't imagine living without  
these feelings you've produced

just one glance  
and my life was redrawn  
just one word  
and my vocabulary changed  
I asked the time  
and you said _what's the hurry?_  
you asked my name  
and I almost forgot

I know  
the odds are all against me  
and I know  
you might not feel this way too  
but I know  
I would rather die trying  
to know  
if I could mean something to you

* * *

**This fanfic is unbeta'd, so if you see any errors, think something should be changed, or have any comments at all, please let me know! Thank you for reading.**


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